ADDITIONAL NOTES:a show on hiatus for longer than 12 months - without any news about its future - is assumed to be canceled

DESCRIPTION:(from A&E's press release, February 2012) A&E Network's hit series "The First 48: Missing Persons," which follows the critical first 48 hours of missing persons cases with the Chicago Police Department, returns with all new episodes on Thursday, March 15 at 10PM ET/PT. Every 30 minutes, someone in Chicago vanishes. It's the job of the Chicago Police Department's Missing Persons Unit to find them and bring them home safely. Continuing as the first series ever allowed unrestricted access to Chicago police investigations, "The First 48: Missing Persons" tracks this elite, dedicated squad of detectives as they scour the city's streets and alleys. If detectives don't find the missing persons in the first 48 hours, their chances of finding them alive are cut in half. Under intense time pressure, detectives must create a portrait of the missing person -- their habits and tendencies, friends and enemies -- while managing the raw emotions of family conflict. Then detectives hit the streets to run down every lead, interview every witness and follow every hunch. They solve over 95 percent of their cases, the highest closure rate in the nation.